What a rebrand actually costs in 2026

Ask ten studios what a rebrand costs and you will get ten answers. The range is real: a freelance logo might be $5,000, while a global identity overhaul from a large network agency can pass a million. Most growing companies land somewhere between $40k and $150k. The difference is mostly scope, not hourly rates.

Where the money goes

On a typical $80k identity project at a studio like ours, the split looks roughly like this:

• Strategy and research, about 20 percent: interviews, audits, positioning and the brief.
• Identity design, about 40 percent: logo, type, colour, image direction and iterations.
• Applications, about 20 percent: the key touchpoints designed in full, such as packaging, decks or signage.
• Guidelines and handover, about 15 percent: the rules, templates and file libraries your team will use daily.
• Project management and contingency, about 5 percent.

Not on that list are the costs clients often forget: custom or licensed fonts at $2k to $20k, trademark searches and filings, photography, and the internal time to roll the brand out across every channel.

How to spend less without getting less

Cut applications, not strategy. A sharp positioning and a solid core identity can be applied by your own team over time. A beautiful set of mock-ups built on a vague strategy cannot be fixed later.

Reuse what already works. If your customers recognise a colour or a shape, a careful evolution is often cheaper and more effective than a clean break. Keeping equity is not a lack of ambition; it means your launch budget goes into reaching people rather than re-teaching them who you are.

Phase the rollout. Launch with the website, social and sales deck, then update packaging and signage as stock runs out. You avoid write-offs and spread the spend across two budgets.

The most expensive rebrand is the one you have to do again in three years because the first one skipped strategy.

Questions to ask any studio

Who will actually do the work? What is included in the guidelines? Who owns the files and fonts at the end? How do you handle extra rounds? Clear answers to those four questions tell you more about value than the headline number.